Now listen here. Centrica/British Gas has been putting it about that the Evening Standard has misled its readers by reporting that its fat-cat executives will between them enjoy dividends this year of more than £250,000.

Here are the facts: Sam Laidlaw, Phil Bentley, Jake Ulrich, and Nick Luff between them own more than two million ordinary shares. They are to receive an interim dividend of 3.9p having just received 2007-8's final dividend of 9.65p. That is total dividends of 13.55p this year which means they have received...well you can do the maths. Perhaps Centrica/British Gas should think about its decision to raise customers' prices by 35% to pay for a 16% rise in the dividend before they go round dissing the messenger.

Follow the money with Gord

Forget David Miliband or the unions — will it be the party donors who do for Gordon Brown in the end? When Stuart Wheeler of IG Index, who gave the Tories £5 million, withdrew his support for then leader Iain Duncan Smith that was a critical moment in his downfall. Now Labour funders are signalling they are less than impressed with Brown. Sir Maurice Hatter of engineering group IMO Precision Controls, said to be a six-figure backer, and Priory boss Chai Patel are among those making unhappy noises...

* David Cameron remains a good friend of the drinks industry — he's called for parents to introduce their children to alcohol at home to educate them about the pleasures of drink and to help avoid trouble when they are older. Before Cameron became Tory leader, he was a £28,000-a-year non-executive director of bars and nightclub firm Urbium.

* The London Stock Exchange has announced plans to introduce a new pricing scheme in order to take on the threat of increased competition from the likes of CHI-X, Torquoise and Plus.

LSE chief executive Clara Furse says the system would “accelerate the structural shift in trading byunlocking the considerable potential for further growth from statistical arbitrage and algorithmic trading, the major driver of change in market micro-structure” . Eh? Why not come out with it and say “pottential for further growth from spivvy hedge funds” , Clara?

Jewellery surprise on MySpace

Who'd have thought it? That most upmarket of luxury brands, Cartier, owned by LVMH, is branching out into online social networking. The jewellery purveyor has set up it own page on MySpace, which must be one of the less likely marketing ploys.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned website, which has lost some of its buzz in the last year, is best known for being a teenage hangout for fans of up-and-coming musicians and bands. It's hard to believe many MySpace users will be buying Cartier as a result — although it's a handy piece of PR.

Unfortunately for Cartier, the greatest publicity it has received in the last week is the decision to bar the glamour model and reality TV star Katie Price, aka Jordan, from the China White party at the Cartier International polo event at Windsor. That hardly damages Cartier with its core upscale customers but the average MySpace user might feel differently...

It's the Ibiza fashion summit

Holiday update: Sir Philip Green has been spending the week in Ibiza with Kate Moss. The Bhs boss has a soft spot for the troubled supermodel but paparazzi photographs show that Sir Philip's teenage daughter Chloe has also struck up quite a friendship with Moss. Chloe and Kate were snapped with their arms around each other as they walked back to the Green yacht after a late-night trip to a bar, along with Sir Philip.

Some fathers would worry about their daughter looking to Moss as a role model but Sir Philip has always been steadfastly loyal to Kate.
His daughter is known to be interested in the clothes business too. How long before she follows Moss by launching her own fashion designs?

* The departure of Alan Schwartz, CEO of troubled Bear Stearns, shows that the takeover by JPMorgan is almost complete. While many Bear staff are losing their jobs as part of the merger, not all existing JPMorgan bankers are safe. A JPMorgan mole, who has been having to part with some of their own team in London to make way for Bear people, says: “It's not been pleasant. And those are staying aren't too happy either as everyone knows the bonuses for this year are going to be terrible.”

Hot air about BA can't hide bad figures

British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh says after announcing profits have nose-dived 88%:
“We are in the worst trading environment the industry has ever faced.”

Citibank analyst and BA bull, Andrew Light, says the airline's outlook statement is “not as bad as feared”.

Blimey, what's worse than worst?

* When amiable Declan Curry isn't hosting the business news on BBC breakfast TV, Aussie dynamo Aaron Heslehurst does the honours. Heslehurst's enthusiasm for his subject can't be faulted — last week he was practically foaming at the mouth about the terrible results for British Airways and Alliance & Leicester — but his full-on presenting style is a bit much for City Spy.

In contrast, the gentle lilt of Curry, who hails from Northern Ireland, is altogether more soothing. The Australian does admit: “Yes — I can get a little carried away at times — my energy and enthusiasm perhaps taking over, but I've always been like that...I realise my type of presenting is like Vegemite...or, as you would say, Marmite — you either like it or you hate it.” Indeed.

* Advertising gurus behind recent campaigns for Toyota's Yaris and Kraft's Philadelphia revealed their thinking at a seminar on the future of newspaper advertising, organised by the Newspaper Marketing Agency at the British Library. The good news — which was hardly the greatest surprise — is that an integrated TV, print and online campaign had a significantly greater impact than TV alone. The man from ZenithOptimedia, who worked on the Toyota push, added: “Toyota wins awards for its website which amazes me as it's absolutely awful.”